 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Roxann
Date: 2016-04-06 22:13
Which easy-to-learn and easy-to-use computer transposing program would you recommend? Ideally, I'd love to scan a page, set the program loose on it, and have it transposed at the blink of an eye. I've never seen one of these programs used, so I don't have a clue how they work. I own an Apple computer so the software would have to be Apple friendly. Thanks!
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Author: kdk
Date: 2016-04-07 00:34
I use Finale. But don't be too hopeful that the process is as simple as you're wishing for. The SmartScore Lite version (the scanning/OCR part of the process) that comes with it is limited, and the more capable versions of SmartScore or Neuratron PhotoScore (its lite version comes with Sibelius) are almost as pricey as Finale. The quality of the scan depends entirely on the quality of the original printed copy, and in most cases you'll have a fair amount of editing to do either in the OCR program itself or in Finale once you've converted and imported the scan into it. I use the combination of SmartScore Pro and Finale for a lot of things, including transposing music for students and the results are very useful. But not "at the blink of an eye." I doubt if anything will work that easily - the state of the art isn't that advanced.
Karl
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Author: Khefren Sackey
Date: 2016-04-07 02:09
I find that Musescore makes a great alternative to Finale and Sibelius. And it's FREE!
https://musescore.org
Post Edited (2016-04-07 02:11)
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Author: jcm499
Date: 2016-04-07 04:12
The program you’re looking for—one than can scan sheet music and transpose it quickly and accurately—doesn’t exist, I’m sorry to report. There are programs that can transpose at the click of a button, but none I’m aware of that do an acceptable job scanning music in. There are programs that attempt it, like Photoscore, but in my experience they make so many mistakes that it’s faster just to enter the score into a scorewriter manually. Plus, if you intend to obtain these programs legitimately, they cost hundreds of dollars. If you use a scorewriter (Sibelius is good; Musescore is free; Finale is also good) and a MIDI keyboard, in conjunction with your number pad, you can enter notation very, very fast. You can enter it in the written key and transpose it automatically. Easy-to-learn and easy-to-use are relative concepts, but I find Sibelius almost completely intuitive.
Incidentally, now that Apple uses Intel processors, nearly every piece of major consumer software works in both Windows and Mac OS. If you open up your Mac and look inside, you’ll see that it has (for example) an Intel processor, Toshiba hard drive, Samsung RAM, all the same stuff you’d find in a Windows box. There’s not much difference any more. I still have both, though. . . .
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Author: kdk
Date: 2016-04-07 04:20
I have a copy and one of my students uses it. How do scanning and recognition work in MuseScore?
Karl
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Author: Roxann
Date: 2016-04-07 04:50
I did look at Musescore, but could not find a way to import my own music. It appears to be a program where you write your own music, or import one of the scores they provide, then you can transpose all you want. it's a shame that we clarinet players can't just alter the length of our barrels and...voila...change the key of the clarinet!
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2016-04-07 05:41
You already have and easy to learn and easy to use transposing program. It's called your brain.
Start with an easy, familiar tune -- say, Three Blind Mice. Find a version in C, play it and then play it up a step in D. Do the same for Row Row Row Your Boat. Then the opening phrase of the Mozart Concerto.
Simply sit down and put in the work to reprogram your mind and muscles. It's hard as hell and totally exhausting for a week. Then you start to get it, and after a while you do it automatically. When your mind goes jammed up, stop, rest for 20 or 30 seconds and start over.
Take an etude such as Rose 32 #1. Play the first line without transposing. Then play it up a step. Do the same with the second line. When you get the whole thing learned up a step, alternate transposing and not transposing when you go to the next line. This teaches you to go back and forth.
Learning to read up a step opens up a world of music. Suddenly the violin, flute and oboe repertoire is in your lap, and you can read the melody off a piano score for songs and hymns.
If you want to be a good player -- if you want to play with other people -- you must bite the bullet and learn to transpose.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Michelle
Date: 2016-04-07 07:12
I used PhotoScore to transpose a bunch of Eb clarinet parts into Bb. I scanned the relevant pages and transposed them... then spent some time cleaning up PhotoScore's assumptions. For me, it was far quicker for me to clean up the mess than it was to enter in the notation manually through NoteFlight, which was what I was doing before.
No idea whether that's apple friendly though
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Author: Roxann
Date: 2016-04-07 19:47
Thank you, Ken. I've printed off your instructions and WILL give it a try. I would love to be able to do this. I'm actually working on 40 Clarinet Studies for Clarinet (Rose) and 24 Varied Scales and Exercises for the Clarinet (Albert) right now with my teacher. I'll add "now transpose this!" to my to-do list:)
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Author: Bennett ★2017
Date: 2016-04-07 20:14
If the original is in pristine condition and highly legible, the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) process can be quite accurate. I use Musitek's Smart Score and find that it is quite good a getting the notes right though very poor at recognizing text (title, composer, dynamic marks, rehearsal #'s, etc.).
The Piano edition ($79) is all that's needed for transcribing single staff originals.
A free demo is available http://www.musitek.com/demos.html
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Author: MichaelW
Date: 2016-04-07 22:09
I use one of the cheaper notation programs: Primus standard. It is rather powerful and for my purposes, mainly transposing for the clarinets, very handy.
For scanning I use Sharp eye, not one of the „bundle“ programs, but at first I scan into Photoshop, meticulously optimize the picture here and export it as a TIFF file. So I get only about one or two „rhythm errors“ per page, even with older prints.
Post Edited (2016-04-07 22:09)
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The Clarinet Pages
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